FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0845.PDF
MAY 3RD, 1945 FLIGHT WAR IN THE AIR Mediterranean aircraft; but the Ger- mans are remarkably clever at repairs, and it is better to hold the key town. We hope the '' Two Gentlemen '' have not been incommoded. Now it remains to be seen whether any substantial number of the Ger- mans in Italy will be able to make their way to the '' redoubt'' in Bavaria, if Gen. Patton's armour does not overrun the whole area first. A captured German General has said that the defeat of his country was due mainly to shortage of lubricating oil. Shortage of petrol must have been at least a good second. A British pilot recently complained that now it was not so easy to set fire to German air- craft on the ground, as they had no fuel in their tanks. Japan and Oil JAPAN must also be feeling the want J of petrol, or at least is likely to do so soon. The Burma oilfields have been recaptured by the 14th Army, but they are said to be in a deplorable state, not only from Allied " scorched earth'' operations at the time of our retreat or from recent bombing, but also from three years of neglect by the Japanese. That is hard to under- stand. Perhaps the warlords .thought that they had such a fine supply in the Dutch West Indies that they need not worry about that in Burma. Now British engineers will get busy on the plant and try to get it back into work- ing order as soon as possible. In the meantime the 14th Army has captured SINECURE APPOINTMENT: Col.Gen. Ritter von Greim who has been appointed commander-in-chief of thenon-existent Luftwaffe in place of Reich Marshal Goring who has retired. OFF THE SECRET LIST : A captured German jet fighter being examrn^Tby the R.A.F. The enemy attempted to destroy this Me 262 with two Junpo turbine- compressor units before Canadians overran the airfield;^J2l*«^i«Jp«Mhgws part of the eight-stage axial compressor which is used(>«#xonjuncjjjd& with turbine whe^Ipf^ .^^~ \ • \ I ) CLIPPED - WING THUNDERBOLT :The latest Thunderbolt, P47N, has squared-off wing-tips and greateraileron area to improve manoeuvra- bility. New type rocket holders replacethe tubes used on previous models. much booty in the town of Toungoo, including 24,000 gallons of petrol. The War in Italy CIMULTANEOUSLY with the sub- *~^ jection of Germany by the forces of General Eisenhower and Marshal Stalin, the troops of General Alex- ander, fighting under the direct com- mand of General Mark Clark, defeated and broke up the German armies in Northern Italy. On ahead of them the Italian partisans came into the open and arrested and executed Mussolini and many of his Fascist councillors. Mussolini is certainly a figure in the history of air war. He was an enthu- siastic pilot himself; but the chief in- terest of his air work lies in his plans for dominating the Mediterranean (mare nostrum) by air. The late Mar- shal Balbo probably shares in the responsibility for the plans. It was decided that aircraft carriers were not necessary in the inland sea. It was believed that long-range bombers, with numerous bases in the Dodec- anese and elsewhere, could dominate the whole sea and forbid it to the British Navy. Well, that plan did oblige us to send our troopships and supply ships all round the Cape to the Middle East. But we held grimly on to Malta, and the Royal Navy always contrived to keep that heroic island supplied with the means to break up the Axis plans. We found carriers in- valuable in the Mediterranean. It is impossible to say, at the moment of writing, whether by the time these words are published, Germany, led by Himmler, will have formally surrendered to the three great Allies of the United Nations. In any case the German armies are now (to use an expression from whaling) in their flurry—that is to say, the final agonised writhings of the harpooned whale before he dies. . .i
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
